(OECS Secretariat, Castries, Thursday October 11^th 2012 ) The OECS Secretariat presents the Official Project Launch for the regional Tax E-filing System financed under EGRIP. The event will be held on Monday, 15^th October 2012 in Saint Lucia

The overall development objective of EGRIP is to promote the efficiency, quality, and transparency of public services in the beneficiary countries, through the delivery of regionally integrated e-government applications that take advantage of economies of scale.

Mr Randolph Cato, Senior Director at the OECS Secretariat and Mr Trevor Braithwaite, Deputy Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank will deliver remarks. Saint Lucia’s Minister for the Public Service, Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology, Senator the Honourable Dr James Fletcher will present the feature address.

The Front End Tax E-filing System has been designed to enable electronic registration; filing of declarations and returns; electronic payments of taxes; interfacing in principle, with any underlying core tax administration system; and allowing for integration with the banking system for payments and refunds, including payments through a future regional payments gateway. Hence the Front End Tax E-filing System Front End Tax E-filing System is also anticipated to help Member States boost investment and reduce expenditure.

The developers of the new system will facilitate a 5-day Inception Workshop for major stakeholders involved in tax administration including Permanent Secretaries, Tax Comptrollers and Information Technology staff.

The Governments of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have each received soft loan financing in an amount equivalent to US$2.4 Million, from the World Bank, for implementation of the OECS Electronic Government for Regional Integration Project (EGRIP). The loans are provided under a special facility of the concessional lending arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association (IDA).

Related Links

• Overview of the OECS EGRIP Front End Tax E-Filing System
• Official Launch Tax E-Filing System

• Workshop Agenda

Video Clips

• HTS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kEr01E7L7w
• DBS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KInDBamR6TA